Businesses in Southbank

10 Mar 2016

Housing both a state of the art showroom and a trade accessible centre, Haymes PaintRight Southbank is a paint shop like no other.

Since moving the business to its new flagship Southbank store from Maribyrnong in 2013, store manager Kathleen Toohey said it had provided the ideal location for serving all of its customers’ needs.

“You don’t walk into any other paint shop and see this kind of thing happening so by having the showroom here we can cater for architects, designers, specifiers and then we have our trade access as well,” she said.

“We have to make sure we’re pleasing everybody and making it a welcoming place for DIYers and people doing home renovations so that’s where this all came about.”

With a combined total of well over 50 years of industry experience, Kathleen and the Southbank team can assist with everything from colour consultations and wood care treatment to industrial coatings and home renovations.

With the retail end of the business growing strongly, Kathleen said it was a strong reflection that the comfortable and relaxed nature of the new store was being received well by the local community.

She said as was the case with most apartment residents, the store had become a local hub for people mainly seeking advice on a whole range of DIY projects.

“For most of the people who do live in apartments, it’s generally just small touch ups as there are a lot of renters. Being a renter myself I can understand that!” she said.

“We’re also seeing a lot more people wanting to do little craft projects as well as a lot of outdoor work, which isn’t so much the case in Southbank but we get a lot of people coming in for their decks and things like that.”

While already both sponsoring a regular kids craft club at the South Melbourne Night Market and Kathleen establishing a DIY column in our newspaper, she said the team was still looking forward to engaging further with the local community.

She said the location of the store, situated in between Southbank, the freeways and the future Fishermans Bend redevelopment, meant the opportunities moving forward were endless.

“There is certainly huge potential and many opportunities for us being close to Southbank, Montague and Port Melbourne with Lorimer St and of course the ongoing maintenance of existing houses and apartments,” she said.

“As our brand and our store becomes a bit more well known hopefully that means they will just come directly to us and we can help them out with whatever they need.”